Channeling Mods Need A Rework

[Terumitsu]

Beyond Killing Blow and an unranked Lifestrike (when it works), the cost/benefit of slotting most other channeling mods is extremely unfavorable to the point where I suspect most don't even bother using them as they are simply out performed by most non-channeling mods. Like... Fury gives us a flat 30% boost to attack speed while Quickening is only a 20% increase while raising the channeling cost by 50%. Another example is where True Punishment is a bonus of only 40% to crit chance for a 60% increase to cost compared to True Steel's flat 60% bonus.

 

Frankly, these and most of the other channeling mods in existence seem to be entirely backwards as they are almost actively made to be ignored. Let's take the two channeling mods we just talked about and do a bit of theory-crafting to explain this more:

 

Say we stick both of them on the Dual Ichor which doubles the base channeling cost right there for just 20% more attack speed and 40% more crit chance. Already this is highly inferior to an 'always on' 30% and 60% respectively. If we were to combine the two then we get 50% more speed and 100% more crit chance but now we've used up half of our mod slots. We want to be able to do damage, right? So we slot in the basic Pressure Point and Killing Blow as we're dedicated to making this a channeling build. We now have two slots left and, if we want to maximize our crit potential given how the weapon works, we slap on Organ Shatter and Berserker.

 

With all of that done, our weapon is now kitted out to deal 161 damage (541 on crit) per hit at the cost of 10.5 energy. As this is a weapon made to attack as fast as possible, with the right combos in place and a few crits later, this can easily be a drain of 50 energy per second to do 1695 Damage per second.

 

But what if we just traded out Quickening and True Punishment for something else? Say.. Just elemental damage mods? Let's say we had this crazy idea of wanting to get as much status chance as we can fit in here and go for some gas damage while we're at it? We already attack super fast by default so let's trade out Quickening for Volcanic Edge.

 

That alone changes our damage to 258 (745 on crit) damage for just 7.5 energy per hit. We already have more damage at the cost of 30% less energy while channeling.

 

Now what if we want to run a Valkyr rage build here and want to channel all day, e'rry day? Well we want some survivability so let's trade out some crit chance for some life gain We will be doing damage fast enough that we don't need to fully rank up a Life Strike.. Or even rank it up at all due to the number of hits. This leaves our damage per hit unchanged and while it slightly lowers our DPS on the weapon, we'll be able to shore that up with Warcry. Over all, we simply lose out on only 300 damage per second without using warcry while at maximum Berserker speed stacks while still getting back about 100 health per second for 6.75 energy on hit. Something that I think many would agree is the superior choice.

 

And if we want to be even more efficient but not lose out in damage? Let's trade out that Volcanic Edge for some Focus Energy and now our on-hit energy cost is down to 4.75 for unchanged damage.

 

The Final Numbers:

 

Original build with True Punishment and Quickening:

 

161 Base Damage

541 Crit Damage

1695 Estimated DPS (Factoring in how many hits will be critical strikes accordingly)

10.5 Energy per hit

 

Quickening build with Volcanic Edge:

 

258 Base Damage

745 Crit Damage

2332 Estimated DPS

7.5 Energy per hit

 

Lifestrike and Focus Energy Build:

 

258 Base Damage

745 Crit Damage

2026 Estimated DPS

4.75 Energy per hit

 

Based upon these numbers, the Lifestrike build, although it may have lower DPS, is overall nearly 40% more efficient at dealing comparable damage than the Quickening/Volcanic Edge build and 70% more efficient than the original build with the added benefit of survivability. Not to mention that the Original build is demonstrably inferior in both damage and efficiency across the board to the lifestrike build.

 

The thing is: Is this a symptom of what is similarly seen to be the problem of Serration and the like OR is this a case where the mods themselves are just inferior to other options?

 

At the bare minimum, these channeling mods Require some attention so that they at the very least provide an appealing choice where they might be selected over a more standard mod. I personally suggest a buff to the stats they increase while reducing the detriment they carry.

 

Except for Lifestrike. That one.. Is in a very odd place, all things considered.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Terumitsu

[Halser]

life strike is a funny mod, considering it is at its best when it's unranked.

 

I do agree on most channeling mods being garbage. If you're burning energy every single strike(and that adds up fast when you have a fast weapon hitting multiple enemies) you should get some very noticeable improvement over not doing so.

[MA347612890GT4078579132R]

A lot of mods in this game need to be looked at and reworked, anc channeling mods are no exception. What they give compared to their detriment is just so not worth it, aside from an unranked Life Strike, I really never use channeling mods. On a previous dev stream, DE did say they knew there was a problem with them, but they've also been talking about how S#&$ some mods are and that they need to be balanced for a long time, mainly in response to the community constantly bringing it up because some mods are just SO BAD. But still we haven't had a big mod rebalancing yet. Hopefully soon. And hopefully channeling mods are affected in that.

[H3RRD0KT0R]

We have really many mods that need a rework, but in this particular case I would say that not only those mods need rework, but the channeling mechanic itself (not not say other aspects of melee as well).